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Old 10-21-2011, 02:53 PM
 
Location: San Francisco, CA
506 posts, read 1,151,826 times
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I don't know anything about Oakland other than what these fine people here say, but I know Humboldt Park is pretty rough! I'm sure you'll be comfortable in any ordinary neighborhood.
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Old 10-21-2011, 09:51 PM
 
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
6,288 posts, read 11,740,401 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by abrasivesounds View Post

I have some questions, if you wouldn't mind answering.

1) What / are there known artist/musician areas?
Almost all the working jazz pianists I've met around here live in Oakland.

Quote:
5) Are there any health stores / yoga studios / holistic centers?
Berkeley is probably one of the prime places in the entire country for that sort of thing
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Old 10-24-2011, 05:24 PM
 
Location: San Leandro
4,576 posts, read 9,137,938 times
Reputation: 3248
Quote:
Originally Posted by abrasivesounds View Post
I've been in Chicago for the last two years, and I'm looking to move to the Bay.

I'll have about $4,000 and I'm going out with a few friends to live somewhere in Oakland. Ideally, I'd live in SF, but I can't afford it at the moment.

I have some questions, if you wouldn't mind answering.

1) What / are there known artist/musician areas?

2) How safe is Oakland?
I've lived in a somewhat sketchy area of Chicago, which is supposed to have gang issues. I don't feel unsafe and have never had any direct interaction with gangs or their byproducts.
On a day-to-day basis, will I encounter ay sort of mugging / gunshots?

3) What is the winter like in Oakland?

4) What is the job market like?
I have a degree and planned on working in the non-profit sector when I moved out to Chicago, but no luck. I have been working as a server, and make decent money. SF has a ridiculously high minimum wage, what about Oakland?
Can I find an entry level job out there, making enough to pay for things?

5) Are there any health stores / yoga studios / holistic centers?

I was born in Chicago and lived in Berkeley so I'll offer my two cents:

Humbolt Park where you are now is kind of a mixed bag, east of the park it is actually a fairly livable and increasingly gentrified area, west of the park, different ball game, a more edgy peurto rican/hispanic hood. It is the same dynamic as SF's mission, minus the critical mass of hipsters.

You should think long and hard before making a drastic move at this point and time. It would be one thing if you had friends and family that already lived in the bay, or you had a job lined up, but what you are doing is risky, especially with only 4,000 dollars to spend.

Assuming you are frugal, live in a crappy rental, and have multiple roommates, 4,000 dollars will last you a total of 2 months in SF. Maybe 3, if you are hardcore. By moving to Oakland, you will be able to add a couple of months. Oakland is cheaper than SF but is not by any means affordable on the level of Chicago. Not by a long shot.

There is no wicker park in Oakland. The nearest thing to that would be the haight , in that they both were once highly hip-artsy districts that have gone yuppie. While many of the establishments, shops, and venues might still cater to the artist class, it is noticably watered down from its past.

Also, I don't know where some one got the idea that Oakland is like the North Side Chicago, it is not at all, not even the good parts. The good parts in central Oakland are problaby more comparable to the South Loop and Near West side. The hills is straight up suburbia, more comparable with Oak Park, Park Ridge, Evanston, and other inner ring Chicago Suburbs. Much of east and west oakland resembles the south side. Industrial decay, struggling hoods, gangs, etc, with enclaves/vassals of decent areas spotted here and there.
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Old 10-24-2011, 05:55 PM
 
Location: South Korea
5,242 posts, read 13,044,398 times
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When was the last time you were in Chicago? I find that North Oakland is a lot like the North Side which has a mix of grubby parts and nice parts itself. The street grid is similar and housing is similar with a mix of three-story apartment buildings and big houses on tiny lots, though Chicago has more apartment buildings in the mix and Oakland has more houses. The Temescal is a lot like somewhere like Ravenswood. I wouldn't say Oakland is exactly like Chicago, but it feels more like Chicago than SF does. They're similarly spread out and have more of middle class, rough around the edges feel than SF does.
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Old 10-24-2011, 06:28 PM
 
Location: San Leandro
4,576 posts, read 9,137,938 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mayorhaggar View Post
When was the last time you were in Chicago? I find that North Oakland is a lot like the North Side which has a mix of grubby parts and nice parts itself. The street grid is similar and housing is similar with a mix of three-story apartment buildings and big houses on tiny lots, though Chicago has more apartment buildings in the mix and Oakland has more houses. The Temescal is a lot like somewhere like Ravenswood. I wouldn't say Oakland is exactly like Chicago, but it feels more like Chicago than SF does. They're similarly spread out and have more of middle class, rough around the edges feel than SF does.

I was there this last summer visiting my mom. In addition to being born there and living there. How long were you there again? Two years? Northside has very few grubbie parts, most of which are infact the north west side.

Where you lived in uptown is like a much cleaner, less hecktic version of the tenderloin, with out the transvestite hookers and meth (stew bums seem to prefer crack in chicago). And that's pretty much amongst worst the north side has these days.

The street grid is not similar at all. Chicago's grid is designed to have a primary street each half mile. And streets have numbers relative to an origion center (madison and state) point from the loop with East, West, north, and south. You can pretty much figure out exactly where some where is in Chicago is relative to the city center just by looking at the numbers following the street names. Probably the most effeciant and easy to navigate grid in the entire country. Oakland has nothing like that, becaues the grid was not designed with that function. Just because a city has a grid does not mean that makes it "like chicago".

Chicago Street Guide and Grid System.

As far as aesthetics, Oakland is not like the north side of Chicago at all not even in housing stock.

The northside of Chicago a lone has a larger land mass, density, and population than the entire city of San Francisco, and cleaner to boot. I'm not sure where you get the idea that they have a similar street scape and rough around the edges feel (at least as far as the northside is concerned). Northside is fairly dense and extremely clean.

And both SF and Oakland have middle class people. They just don't have stable middle class areas where families can afford to live. Different ball game in Chicago, where you have whole neighborhoods made up of Cops, city employees, and Firefighters making 60k a year, that are low crime. Pretty much any area in the bay area, including oakland, with that median family income and you get belly up section 8 hoods.

I'm not sure any of these pictures of the northside remindes me of oakland.











^^^ This sidewalk is cleaner than some of the benches, ledges, and bart seats I have sat on in the bay area

http://chicagoapartmentsearch.com/images/nearnorth/newberry-05.jpg (broken link)


Only other place where a cluster of high rise residential towers of this grandure (and then some) can be found is nyc

Last edited by NorCal Dude; 10-24-2011 at 06:49 PM..
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Old 10-24-2011, 07:15 PM
 
Location: Oakland, CA
28,226 posts, read 36,750,520 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NorCal Dude View Post

^^^ This sidewalk is cleaner than some of the benches, ledges, and bart seats I have sat on in the bay area
Good point, the Bay is really dirty. Especially compared to super clean Chicago.
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Old 10-24-2011, 09:17 PM
 
Location: South Korea
5,242 posts, read 13,044,398 times
Reputation: 2957
Oakland has a somewhat similar street layout in that it has major streets at intervals where most traffic is then a lot of residential side streets. It's not the strict grid that Chicago has but it's sort of similar. SF is a mess in comparison, it has some major streets like Market and Van Ness but pretty much all the side streets are equally as important as one another so anywhere you go there's a lot of traffic. If you bike in SF you can't escape all the traffic because there's no side streets with less traffic. If you're in Oakland you can either stay in bike lanes on major streets like Telegraph or you can cut through side streets and avoid all the traffic. You can do the same thing in Chicago.
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